Summer Cool - A Jack Paine Mystery (Jack Paine Mysteries) Read Free

mute.
    "Terry—"
    "Dammit, Jack, he took the money! All of it! He emptied the savings account, the checking account, he cashed the CDs and savings bonds." Her fury crested and she brought her fist down impotently on the edge of Paine's desk. She stifled a sob. She looked up at him, her pleading look return ing . "He emptied the girls'college funds, for God's sake! Oh, Jesus, he's gone. . . ."
    Her sobbing went on, and she suddenly looked very small sitting in the chair across from Paine.
    He rose and went around to her, and held her and she put her head against him. "I'll get a job, I'll borrow, but I can't pay you now, Jack. I can't. . . ."
    He told her to be quiet, that there was nothing more to say as far as payment was concerned, and he held her and let her cry, and suddenly he wasn't thinking of the heat or of jumping bass or stars, but of finding someone he very badly wanted to talk to.

3
     
    T he air conditioner in Jim Coleman's office was off. Coleman didn't look happy about it. It looked as though he had tried to wedge a crack open in the window above the air conditioner fitting and failed ; the screwdriver he had used was still stuck at an angle between metal and wood.
    Coleman's tie was loosened, his white shirt unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up. Sweat marks showed through the white polyester around his armpits. His thin face bore a sheen of sweat from his receding hairline down over his dachshund's face to his chin.
    "Fucking city" he said, motioning Paine to sit down. "Ever since that housing business last year made the national news, we all gotta be saints. Now we can only have the fucking air conditioning on from twelve to three. Yonkers never had any money anyway, I don't know what they're worried about. You really think Paducah gives a shit about Yonkers?"
    "I wouldn't know," Paine said.
    Coleman waved at the air. Paine watched a drop of sweat fall from his chin to his clean blotter. "Fucking city."
    Coleman looked at Paine for the first time. "So how you been, Jack?" His voice almost sounded as if he cared.
    Paine shrugged.
    "Ah, I know," Coleman said. "I know." He waved at the air again, stopped looking at Paine. "We really squeezed you through the ass-pipe."
    Paine said nothing.
    Coleman gave a hearty false laugh. "I always said you looked like shit anyway, right?" The laugh trailed away. Paine still said nothing.
    Coleman wheeled abruptly in his swivel chair, smacked the on button on the air conditioner. "Fuck it," he said, swiveling back around. Again, he looked at Paine. "For you, for old times, I'll break the rules."
    The air conditioner clacked, began to throw tepid air into the room.
    "Can't we just talk about Bobby?" Paine asked.
    "Sure," Coleman said. "Sure. But first we gotta talk about you and me."
    Again, Paine was silent.
    "Look," Coleman said, if it helps, I'm sorry. Real sorry. We fucked up twice. I knew your dad, I knew you, but I also knew Joe Dannon. Dannon had a lot of pull around here. I didn't know he was a bad cop. Not that bad, anyway. That whole bunch of us came up here from the Bronx, we were tight. Jeez, you know I served with Petty in Vietnam. Your dad was the guy we all looked up to. You remember me over at the house when you were a kid. You remember we played ball, you and me and your brother Tommy. Your dad bled blue, Jack. But you gotta remember, me and Dannon were partners for six years. From '63 to '69. I was with him on Fordham Road, day Kennedy got shot. We covered a lot of shit together. We got called down to Columbia for the riots. Dannon took stuff, then, small stuff. Just about everybody did. Before Knapp and all that."
    "Did you?"
    Coleman blinked, and then looked defiantly at Paine. "Yeah, I did."
    He leaned forward now, over his desk toward Paine, and little drops of sweat fell from his chin to his clean blotter. The air conditioner had not helped the room much.
    "But you gotta remember, Jack. It was the times. It was small shit. I never saw Dannon do anything